The fight is over pediatric COVID data the state said was confidential, even after making the same data available for a year on a daily dashboard.
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The USA TODAY Network and several other major news media companies in Florida have joined a suit by state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, and the Florida Center for Government Accountability against the state for refusing to turn over pediatric COVID data.
During a pre-trial conference late Monday afternoon, Tallahassee-based Circuit Judge John Cooper granted a motion to intervene filed by the Network, the Miami Herald, the Associated Press, Scripps Media Company, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Florida First Amendment Foundation.
“We are pleased the Court granted the news media’s motion to intervene and look forward to providing our perspective on the need for the Department to disclose detailed and timely data regarding COVID-19,” said Mark Caramanica, a lawyer for the Thomas and LoCicero firm in Tampa, which has represented several news media companies separately and collectively on public records disputes with the state.
Originally, Cooper was not going to hear the motion to intervene at the status conference, but changed his mind, overriding objections from the state’s lawyers.
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Cooper overruled the objections raised by lawyers for the state’s Department of Health and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Smith filed the lawsuit July 23 after the state officially denied his request, saying the data he sought on pediatric hospitalizations was confidential, even after making the same data available for a year on the DOH daily dashboard.
He claims the state is wrongly interpreting an exemption to public records laws, and also is pushing to get the state to resume daily reporting of COVID data at the county level, which the state stopped reporting in June when it took down its dashboard.
The lawsuit is demanding the release of the data he requested and resumption of the daily dashboard reports. “All Floridians have the right to receive critical public health data in a timely manner in order to make informed decisions to protect the health of their families,” Smith said.
In their motion to intervene, the news organizations noted that their reporters also use the state’s public records as important news gathering sources.
The USA TODAY Network owns 260 daily brands in the United States and Guam, including nearly two dozen newspapers in Florida including the Tallahassee Democrat, Palm Beach Post, Florida Times Union, Pensacola News Journal and the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
State news media organizations have also filed public records requests for county-level death statistics — the same data that was provided on a daily basis up until three months ago. Lawyers for the news media have been negotiating with the department for weeks to get that county-level data as well as other information.
The news media lawyers must file a legal memorandum on how the exemption to the public records law should be interpreted.
Cooper laid out a very tight schedule for the trial. The state’s summary judgment motion is due Friday at noon. Plaintiffs’ opposition and the news media’s memorandum are due next Monday at noon. Final hearings are set for Sept. 29 and 30.
Cooper also said he would likely designate the case as high-profile. That means the public will be able to watch the proceedings on the Second Judicial Circuit’s YouTube channel.
Jeffrey Schweers is a capital bureau reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida. Contact Schweers at jschweers@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.
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